


Enasal

by veilfire



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Character Study, F/F, Polygamy, mentioned Dalish/OC, mentioned Dalish/Stitches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-02
Updated: 2015-09-02
Packaged: 2018-04-18 16:31:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4712765
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/veilfire/pseuds/veilfire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Like clearing her mouth of dirt, she calls you Dalish.</i> </p>
<p>Words echo. Other things echo, too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Enasal

**Author's Note:**

> [DA Wiki](http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Elven_language) tells me _Enasal_ means _joy in triumph over loss; a variation of joyful relief_. I sure hope Wiki is right.
> 
> [Tofsla](http://archiveofourown.org/users/tofsla) beta'ed. They're the best. Thank you, friend!
> 
> There's one instance of Skinner calling Dalish a gendered slur in this fic. If you're afraid it may upset you and want further explanation before diving in, head to the note at the end of the fic.

Her whispers sing in your hair as the winds used to sing. You shear half your head, you yourself only a half of what you had been.

*

Magic and words, horseshoes on stone and the wheels of carts, everything echoes through Skyhold. The Halla are silent across the plains, their hooves light on the grass. Aravels make no sound in your head.

Skinner laughs louder than anyone else. Shouts louder, too.

* 

Like clearing her mouth of dirt, she calls you Dalish. It happens before she hears them call you by your name. But then, it’s not a name, and that’s why you’ve chosen it. The Chief grabs her elbow. “No fighting. Get to know them first.” She almost shanks him. Your too-wide smile hides a snarl, your Vallaslin hides the rest.

“Hey, Dalish!” Krem, by the fire, holds out the cards in his hands. “You playing, or what?”

“Pretty boy,” you say, “prepare to lose your pants.” 

*

From Stitches’ tent straight to take over the watchpost, you tie your armor as you walk. She’s been eyeing you the whole way. She crosses her arms when you get near. She’s Skinner, and you don’t thinks it’s a name, either.

“Shems’ whore,” she says when you pass her by. 

You laugh. “You say the most Dalish things. You sure you're from a city?” She spits then, right between your feet. Dozen of words about her aim flood your head. You hold them in.

In the morning, you trudge up to the Chief. “It’s fine,” you tell him.

“Really,” he says, flatly, sparing you a glance before straightening his neck to look up and ahead. You’re moving, and you know it’s south, and you do it to survive. Almost like a clan on a hunt.

“Yes. Let her stay.”

“We’ll see,” he says, and you shrug. It’s more than you should have done.

*

She makes it through the first month. Not many people do.

*

You kill together, the only blood-bond that matters.

*

She comes to your tent by the end of the last fall job. The snowfall that will block the roads hangs in the air already, and you are cold, colder every day. It’s gonna be your second winter with them. The first had almost killed you, holed up in a city as you were, air in your lungs thick like smoke, passer-bys looking at you like you were something else. Prey. 

Before, you hadn’t even known the word: passer-by. 

You’d bought a bow, and you always have your teeth.

“You like? Women?” Skinner asks, hands wavering over the topmost tie of her tunic.

“I like everybody,” you say.

“Fat lie.” It is.

You watch her undress.

When you tug her down by her hand and lay her atop yourself, she laughs. She nips the tip of your ear. You bite her mouth bloody red.

She smells—fresh.

*

You don’t crawl out of your skin in the winter. You collect your Wicked Grace winnings and buy a fur-lined muff. When it gets really cold, you both put your hands in it, and you summon a small ball of warmth in the cup of your palm. She never breathes a word about it. 

If someone looks, you don’t notice.

Or maybe you do; you just don’t get goosebumps from looking alone any more.

*

The tear in the sky is green, green like the forests of your youth, the same sickly shade. You think of your Keeper, of her daughter who’d wanted to be you. Your lip splits when you grin, but it’s funny, so funny, what makes you think of them.

The Dalish don’t have a word for irony. Not such a concise one.

*

Skyhold is a ruin, and then it is not. You move out from the stables to a room with Skinner and Stitches and Ylsa, a dwarf with a maul taller than her. She’s the cutest of you all, so good with her tongue as you’re with your fingers.

There’s not an ounce of shame in you. Why would there be? No one left to remind you of it. 

*

The Inquisitor goes north and south, east and west, dragging the Chief along. Next destination: the Dales. “Krem and the boys stay,” the Chief tells you in the evening before they set out, tankard in hand. He’s not drunk, but you may be. “But you could join Red’s scouts, come with us. Lavellan—”

Clan Lavellan of Free Marches. You hail from eastern Ferelden, if you hail from any one place at all. You might have met at Arlathvhen when you were both children. Who could say, after so many years.

“I’ll stay.” You stare him down until he hangs his head and scratches the back of his neck.

*

Skyhold is much less crowded than the cities you’d spent the last two winters in. It gets so much louder.

You take Skinner out, down the nearest slope, half hour through the woods, to a clearing with a stream, to fuck. 

“I’ve soil in my asscrack,” she complains, later. “And the water is cold as balls.” 

You laugh, and the sound of it gets lost among the tree trunks, among leafless branches like demon-hands from your dreams. You laugh, and it seeps into the ground, sinks in the stream, spreads through air.

She laughs back, and it spreads through you. It fills up your lungs and echoes off your bones, a perpetual loop in the rhythm of your heartbeat.

Your Vallaslin pulses with it.

**Author's Note:**

> Skinner calls Dalish _shems' whore_ when she notices Dalish leaving Stitches' tent. It comes from a place of hurt, not malice, and Dalish recognizes it, but they never talk it out.


End file.
